Months
before Disneyland
opened, Walt became a grandfather for the first time. He was absolutely
delighted. But there was one disappointment: Walt had hoped his first
grandson would be named after him, and Diane had decided to name the
baby Christopher. "Afterwards, I felt that we had made a
mistake," she said. Walt would have to wait while Diane had three
girls before Walter Elias Disney Miller was born. In all, Diane would
have six children during Walt's lifetime -- a seventh after he died.
Sharon, who married an architect named Bob Brown in 1959, would have one
child, Victoria, during Walt's lifetime. Two more would follow later.
Walt was a loving, doting grandfather. "He always had a camera with
him," recalls granddaughter Tamara. "He had a tendency of
handing the camera to a child. There's a great series of him crouching
lower and lower as a child took the pictures."

Though
there are now many themed amusement parks, Walt's was the first. As Disneyland
historians David Mumford and Bruce Gordon write, "Everyone has a
hometown, and Walt always considered his to be Marceline, Missouri."
To welcome guests to Disneyland,
Walt would invite them into his home, or rather his hometown. A single
corridor, themed as a "better than the real thing" midwestern
Main Street, would guide guests into the heart of Disneyland.
From there, they could choose to enter a number of themed lands, each of
which was based on a world that was near and dear to Walt's heart and
populated with the characters he loved. Mumford and Gordon write,
"Stories of the construction of Disneyland
are legendary. From the Frontierland riverbed that leaked dry the first
time the banks were filled, to the flying Dumbo elephants that were too
heavy for the ride's armature, it was clear nothing like this had ever
been built before."

Several
days before Disneyland
opened, Walt and Lilly celebrated their 35th anniversary at the park. It
was a happy night for the family, complete with Walt and Lilly dancing
on the stage of the Golden Horseshoe. Diane recalls her father in the
backseat of the car on the way home, holding a rolled-up Disneyland
map: "He was tooting through it like a little boy with a toy
trumpet. And then he was singing a song. And before I knew it, there he
was like a little boy, sound asleep, with his trumpet folded in his
arms." Opening day of the park was televised on a 90-minute live
television program that was the most-watched TV event up to that time.
Some 20 cameras posted around the park telecast a vision of exciting
attractions, heartfelt dedications, and relaxed commentary from Art
Linkletter, Bob Cummings, and Ronald Reagan.

But
like so much on television, reality didn't quite live up to the
illusion. In fact, the park wasn't really ready for prime time yet.
Opening day, rides broke down; there were too few trash cans; lines were
far too long; not enough water fountains were operating. Perhaps worst,
thousands of counterfeit invitations had been distributed, and so the
park was overloaded, while the roads leading to Disneyland
were jammed with bumper-to-bumper cars filled with irate passengers. But
opening day was soon over, and most of the problems were fixed. Better
yet, Walt was able to start making changes and improvements. Dumbo
Flying Elephants, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the Mike Fink Keel
Boats were all in operation before the end of the year. Tom Sawyer Island
opened the next. "Disneyland
will never be completed," Walt said. "He practically lived
there," recalled Lilly.

Considering
his commitment to Disneyland,
it's not surprising that Walt was unable to devote himself to the
studio's film output as he had in the past. Though quality was somewhat
erratic -- more than one less-than-wonderful film was released -- the
studio produced a series of successful films through the early 1960s.
The animated features included "Lady and the Tramp,"
"Sleeping Beauty," "101 Dalmatians," and "The
Sword in the Stone." Live-action films included "Johnny
Tremain" (which featured Sharon in a bit part), "Old
Yeller," "Darby O'Gill and the Little People,"
"Swiss Family Robinson," and "Pollyanna." Walt was
always involved with casting, and for Pollyanna he hired 12-year-old
Hayley Mills, a very talented young lady who went on to star in a number
of Disney productions. "She would mess with her mouth and be very
natural. Walt loved her," reported artist Peter Ellenshaw.

In
1959, Walt came out with "The Shaggy Dog," the first of a
series of lighthearted comedies that did reliably well in the box
office. Like "The Shaggy Dog," "The Absent-Minded
Professor" similarly relied upon impossible situations for much of
its humor. Though Fred MacMurray was billed as the star of that film, it
was actually the flying car that held audiences spellbound. As a result
of the success of such films, by 1961, Walt's company was debt free for
the first time in some 20 years. He would have liked to expand his scope
to a wider range of films, but his public wouldn't have stood for it. In
the 1960s, he saw the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" and told
Ron Miller he'd like to make a picture like it. But he knew that was
impossible. "He was very frustrated," recalled Miller.
"Walt had created this image and he got locked in."

Walt
and Roy -- who had always had their differences -- had one of their most
protracted battles in 1963 when Roy
determined he had to deal with Walt's own company -- WED -- which was
beginning to put efforts into a new project in Florida. Roy
felt, perhaps justifiably, that there was a potential conflict of
interest between Walt's personally owned company and the
stockholder-owned Disney Company. Lawsuits could follow. Walt, he said,
would have to sell portions of WED to the Disney Company. Writes Bob
Thomas, author of biographies of both brothers, "For months they
would not talk to each other, communicating through intermediaries and
impersonal memos. Only their close associates were aware of the frost
between them." Finally, a compromise was reached. And Walt gave Roy
a Native American peace pipe, writing, "It was wonderful to smoke
the pipe of peace with you again -- the clouds that rise are very
beautiful."